Growth in multimedia data traffic such as video and music has been accompanied by a fundamental shift in how, when and where users access multimedia content. Currently, users have a wide range of devices, such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, TVs, media players, and gaming consoles available for use. These devices are capable of interacting with multiple other types of devices, some of which store content locally and some of which may be used to display content. For example, users may want to stream a video from the internet to a tablet, but display the video on a television in their living room. This type of streaming using sharing of screens and other device features for presentation of media including graphical, video and audio content across devices has been enabled by the development of new technologies with the purpose of making the sharing efficient and seamless.
Technology for implementing the sharing and streaming of multimedia between two or more devices includes direct peer-to-peer technologies such as Wi-Fi Direct or Bluetooth that provide direct connections between devices. In these peer-to-peer technologies, users can transfer data, for example by transmitting messages, streaming content or mirroring a display from one device (the source) to a second device (the display), among others. For example, Wi-Fi Direct allows users to establish a direct. Wi-Fi connection between two or more devices to communicate data directly on a Wi-Fi channel. This eliminates the need for routing the peer-to-peer communications through a network, such as a Wi-Fi Network using access points.
In many cases however, such as during the use of a Wi-Fi Direct peer-to-peer connection, one tar more of the devices in a peer-to-peer connection may also need to maintain a network connection in order to send and receive messages or access the interne for other reasons. The need to maintain multiple connections and the way in which channel resources am allocated in such a scenario may place heavy demands on processing capabilities of the transceivers of devices and may have a negative impact on the performance of one or both of the Wi-Fi Direct peer-to-peer connection and the Wi-Fi network connection. It may also have an impact on device operating efficiency and device resources such as battery power. Additionally, the channel interference environment for the channels of the network in Which the devices are located may be impacted.